A few years ago my sixty-something neighbor, a nice but tiresome lady, showed up at my door to gently complain about something I needed to fix. A few minutes later she got weirdly quiet and sighed, which I’d learned was my cue to ask.

“My husband is really upset lately because our son has been dating a half-breed nigger.”

She said it casually and in cahoots, like she’d mentioned that interest rates were up and so of course we’d both see the obvious downside of what was coming next.

And when I looked horrified, she didn’t.

“Oh yes, I forgot your generation doesn’t talk that way,” she said.

“Actually my entire family doesn’t talk that way,” I said.

And when one of my brothers who wasn’t raised racist offhandedly used the N-word I told him no, not ever. Not in my house.

People need to hear that thinking racist or outrageous bile out loud isn’t okay simply because people hand them a few empathetic hall passes like:

They hail from a less politically correct era

They earned the senior privilege to no longer self-censor

They’re rightfully angry about lost or displaced jobs

They’re rightfully scared of growing terrorist threats

They’re rightfully sick and tired of the bought and paid political establishment

You don’t get to imply that a female journalist has PMS or that Carly Fiorina is ugly or that real war heroes don’t get captured. You don’t get to make fun of a disabled reporter or say racist things about Mexicans or that you’d ban all Muslims.

Okay you get to say almost whatever you want, but clearly you shouldn’t.

We the people decide if we raise or lower the bar for civil discourse. … FULL POST at the Huffington Post